1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control method and control apparatus suited for downloading, for example, music data or the like transmitted via a on a digital satellite broadcast to a data storage apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Digital satellite broadcasting is now spreading. Compared with existing analog broadcasting, the digital satellite broadcasting resists noise and fading and allows transmission of high quality signals. Also, the digital satellite broadcasting improves frequency utilizing efficiency and provides multi channels. For instance, in the digital satellite broadcasting, it is possible for one satellite to provide several hundreds channels. The digital satellite broadcasting provides many specialized channels such as sports, movie, music and news, on which channels individual contents are broadcast.
Among these specialized channels, music channels are among the most popular broadcasting programs for promotion purposes in which mainly new songs and hit songs are put on the air.
As stated above, programs for introducing new songs and hit songs are put on the air by means of moving pictures and sound via conventional music channels. If viewers watch the music channels and find some songs favorable, they want to buy CDs or the like containing the song and enjoy them. Also, they are sometimes inclined to gather information on the artists singing the songs they like and information on albums containing the favorite songs. When a viewer watches a music program and want to know about information on an artist or his or her album containing the view""s favorite song it is convenient that the viewer can obtain the information. Further, when the viewer finds a favorite song, he or she can download audio data on the song. The conventional music channels are, however, one-way media to send moving pictures and sound and are not able to respond to such requests from viewers.
To solve the above disadvantage, there has been proposed a music content transmission system which allow viewers to easily obtain information on music put on the air on a music channel and to easily download music data to a data storage device (as described in, for example, PCT/JP98/05044 filed on Nov. 10, 1998 by the same applicant as that of this application). There has also been proposed downloading information on lyrics and jacket data as well as the music data in the music content transmission system.
Meanwhile, to provide such a music content transmission system, a user side for receiving digital satellite broadcasting needs to connect a tuner for receiving the digital satellite broadcasting to a data storage device (recording device) which employs a storage medium such as a magneto-optical disc and to download music data received at the tuner to the recording device. In this case, if the music data received at the tuner is to be downloaded to the recording device, processing is need for controlling the recording operation and the like of the recording device based on data including the broadcast start and end time of the song as well as music data received at the tuner. Thus, it is required to set the tuner and the recording device to operate in cooperation with each other. For instance, there are various types of recording to devices recording audio signals. It is difficult for device data from broadcasting stations from which music programs are transmitted to directly control unspecified recording devices connected to tuners.
Furthermore, the number of recording devices connected to a tuner is not always one and a plurality of recording devices may be connected to the tuner. In that case, it is also impossible for the broadcasting stations to select the recording device to which music data is downloaded. It is, therefore, necessary to deal with them at the tuner side in some way.
It is noted that the above description concerns a case of transmitting music data by digital satellite broadcasting The same problems occur when are various content data transmitted from the external side using broadcast wave or the like and are to be downloaded to the reception side based on the data transmitted therefrom together with the content data.
It is an object of the present invention to easily download content data obtained from the external side to connection equipment.
The music data transmitted from the transmitting side by such a transmission system is usually copyright data. Therefore, if the music data downloaded to the user side recording apparatus is reproduced without restrictions, it is difficult to protect copyrights and the music content transmission system itself might not be effectively utilized.
In addition, separate copyrighted data given to the author of the character data, on lyrics and static image data on images of static the jacket attached to the music data respectively. It is, therefore, necessary to deal with those copyrights differently from the copyright of the music data.
It is another object of the present invention to make it possible to appropriately deal with the recording of the transmitted data having copyrights.
When dealing with the reception of songs broadcast using such a transmission system and downloading them to a user side recording apparatus, it is possible to download a song which the user likes to the recording apparatus just before the end of the broadcast this is accomplished by determining the at which the song that the user wants to record is broadcast (transmitted) by a certain method and downloading the song that the user desires to the recording apparatus. Since many music data (songs) can be transmitted with such a system it take a lot of time and labor to look for songs which the user desires to download when a list of broadcast times of respective songs is simply displayed on a program guide screen.
It is yet another object of the present invention to make it possible to easily deal with the processing required for obtaining desired data when much data such as music data is transmitted by broadcasting.
According to the present invention a method for controlling a second equipment connected to a first equipment by executing a first program inputted to the first equipment from an external side and a second program prepared for the first equipment in advance, comprises the steps of conducting processing for starting the second program; and acquiring information on the second equipment by execution of the started second program.
According to the control method of the present invention, the acquisition of information on the second equipment by the first program inputted from the external side to the first equipment is executed by the second program prepared in the first equipment.
In addition, a control apparatus according to the present invention comprises a first operable stored unit storing a first program inputted from an external side; a second storage unit prepared in advance and operable stored a second program started by the first program; and a processing unit for executing the programs stored in the first and second storage units, processing units being operable to acquire information on a connected equipment based on execution of the second program stored in the second storage unit and control the connected equipment based on the acquired information.
According to the control apparatus of the present invention, the control of the equipment connected based on the first program inputted from the external side is executed through the second program contained in this apparatus.
A data receiving and recording method according to the present invention comprises the steps of receiving data coded by a predetermined method and copyright information attached to the to data; and while recording the received data on a predetermined recording medium, causing the copyright information to be recorded in a predetermined area of the recording medium.
According to the data receiving and recording method of the data present invention, the copyright information as well as data is recorded on the recording medium.
Further, a data receiver according to the present invention comprises receiving means for receiving data of multiplexed and transmitted copyright information; determining means for determining the copyright information received by the receiving means; and transmitting means for transmitting the data received by the receiving means to a predetermined recording apparatus and transmitting the copyright information determined by the determining means to the recording apparatus as information attached to the data.
According to the data receiver of the present invention, the copyright information as well as data is transmitted to the data recording apparatus to thereby make it possible to record the copyright information as well as the data on the recording apparatus.
A receiving method according to the present invention comprises the steps of receiving text data strings indicating names relevant to main data transmitted by broadcast on a predetermined channel; retrieving text strings including a designated character string from the received text data strings; displaying a list of the designated character strings; receiving the main data relevant to a selected character string from the displayed character strings; and downloading the received main data to a predetermined recording apparatus.
According to the receiving method of the present invention, it is possible to retrieve necessary data based on the received text data string and to download the retrieved data.
Furthermore, a data receiver according to the present invention comprises receiving means for receiving main data transmitted by broadcast of a predetermined channel and text data indicating names relevant to the main data; input means for inputting character strings to be retrieved; retrieval means for retrieving character strings inputted by the input means from a text data string received by the receiving means; display control means for creating image data for displaying texts including the character strings retrieved by the retrieval means; and control means for receiving main data designated by a text selected from a table list displayed by the image data in the receiving means and downloading the main data to a predetermined recording apparatus.
According to the data receiver of the present invention, the retrieval means can retrieve necessary data based on the text data string received by the receiving means and control means can download the retrieved data.